


In Dreams' Projections

by Foophile



Category: Prison Break
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, M/M, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 11:30:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5965744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Foophile/pseuds/Foophile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael collapses at his brother’s side, gravel digging into his knees as he crawls the foot it takes to grab Lincoln’s far shoulder and turn him over. A quick glance at his ashen face and Michael can already tell that if Lincoln isn’t already dead, he’s going to be soon. </p><p>AU beyond episode 4.14, “Just Business”. When Michael goes down, he's taken in by The Company and given a choice: work for them with his brother or die and leave his friends and family to an uncertain future. With Lincoln by his side, he makes the decision of his life and the brothers learn more about their limits than they thought capable.</p><p>Originally written in 2010 for the kink_bigbang with images and a mixtape from birddi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

_“Rebel souls. Deserters we are called._  
Chose the gun and threw away the sword.  
All these towns. They all know our name.”

 

There is no beginning.

There are lives already in progress. A story where others have already paved a circuitous route and stalled in the middle to curse the next generation.

The details can change. They have. But the ending is a dream – a nightmare.

Reality is a never-ending series of dreams in disguise.

_

Lincoln is down, face down, on the ground and even from his vantage point Michael can see a growing pool of blood.

Michael doesn’t call his name. He would never waste precious seconds that could be spent eliminating the sniper who shot his brother down. Michael’s running as that man falls to the asphalt, dead certainly, but there’s no time for second-guessing.

Lincoln’s on the ground. And he hasn’t moved. Not even jerked.

Michael collapses at his brother’s side, gravel digging into his knees as he crawls the foot it takes to grab Lincoln’s far shoulder and turn him over. A quick glance at his ashen face and Michael can already tell that if Lincoln isn’t already dead, he’s going to be soon.

More shots ring out, dangerously close pings, and Michael fires back blindly until they stop. There’s a cry of pain then silence. More dead men and all Michael can see is Lincoln bleeding out. He can think of nothing else.

Michael’s dragging Lincoln under the elbows to some safety, anywhere other than a deserted shipyard littered with three murdered bodies when he hears steps behind him. He doesn’t drop Lincoln when he turns, gun drawn and ready but it’s a near thing.

Especially when he hears her voice say, “My how things have changed.”  
_

Michael Scofield used to be a man with a plan. The plan really. And it was damn good with all the players executing their part just as expected, with a few surprises – mostly good – along the way. He moved along nicely, a train well placed on its rails with more stops than he would have wished but the same destination on the horizon. Then his chugging train stalled, tripped it tracks, and somersaulted in spectacularly morbid fashion.

When Michael has a moment to think, he can see it rolling down a hill, end over end with the occupants flailing about like ragdolls that resemble the Fox River Eight and anyone they’ve ever known.

And in his head, it comes to a crunching halt. Literally.

“If you want to continue to believe that you have a choice, Michael. We can break this down for you.”

The General is a no-nonsense man. Any other day, Michael would appreciate that, it reminds him of Lincoln, but today the tumor in his temple is threatening to shut down his motor functions and Michael’s entire future and family hangs in the balance.

He’s trying not to shiver in the cold lab room they’ve half-converted into a hospital with a solitary bed. The clear walls aren’t much for privacy but then neither is the thin, short, gown his no-name doctor has insisted that he wear. His ass is freezing.

The General on the other hand is fully clothed and appears entirely comfortable in the padded chair facing Michael’s hospital bed.

Michael hates him a little more for it. And he didn’t think that was even possible.

“We save your life and help you through your rehabilitation,” the bald General continues as if Michael said anything. “You come and work for us. You and Lincoln. For two years. Learn how we work. Why your family worked for us for most of your childhood and adult life. Learn what your father died for.”

Michael has to interrupt here because bringing his father into this is a low blow. But this is obviously a ball kicking kind of Company.

Ball kicking and murderous as well since the first words out of The General’s mouth were that they have Lincoln and Sara and that Michael would be deciding how long they lived. Oh, and there is the small issue of Scylla.

“What about Sucre and Mahone? What about Scylla?” The fact that he hasn’t been interrogated thus far has worried him more than the tumor in his skull.

“We haven’t heard a peep from them since you’ve come to us and we won’t stop them from walking away. If the law allows it, they can be free. As for Scylla, you’ll need to tell us who has it, of course.”

Michael looks away, eyes narrowed so that his lie is less obvious. “What makes you think we don’t?”

“Because you would have brought it up well before now, Michael.” The General says with a twitch of his lips that might be a grin.

“You tried to have my brother executed for a crime he didn’t commit and aided the FBI in a manhunt to have us killed.”

The General shrugs, hands open then back in his lap and Michael tries not to gawk at his nonchalance. “We won’t deny that.”

He wonders if The General thinks of The Company and himself as one entity. The way married couples do. And, if so, why is Michael the one being screwed? But the pounding in his head encourages him to move things along.

Michael grits his teeth and tries not to show his pain. “Why would you take the chance of having us work for you? We’re a liability.”

The General’s answer is quicksilver smooth. “You’re also the sons of two of this company’s brightest associates. We believe in legacy here.” He fixes his pressed suit for what seems like the hundredth time.

The black suited bodyguard behind him stands like stone and Michael eyes him with what little humor he can muster. What exactly do they think his deathbed-ridden ass is going to do? Flash them to death?

He could really use Lincoln or Sara at his side because this decision is harder than he thought it would be. After all this running and danger, he’s dying by something other than a bullet and suddenly doesn’t want to.

It isn’t that Michael wants to die. He isn’t suicidal and has never been. It’s that the longer they ran, the slimmer the chances seemed that he would make it out alive and he was okay with that. Or at least had resolved to face his fate as gracefully as he could.

But this tumor – to die the same way his mother died…the helplessness makes him so angry. Makes him want to survive.

“You believe in legacy,” Michael says. “But elaborately framed my brother for the murder of a vice president who needed to get out of the spotlight. How does that equate to honoring the legacy of our parents?”

“We’re like any other organization in the world, Michael. We feel, we think,” The General says with emotion so forced that Michael almost asks if he’s performing for the surveillance cameras.

Instead, he wraps his flimsy robe tighter around his body and tries not the shiver from the feeling of despair.

“You sound like the Borg,” He mutters, looking away.

“In a way we are. But we’re much better because we care.”

The nausea could be the cocktail they’re using to stabilize his system or listening to this bile. Either way, Michael hopes the General didn’t pay too much for his shoes. The old man must notice the disgust on his face because his mouth turns into a hard line, his wrinkled face stripped of its mask of “caring” to reveal the stone underneath.

There is the calculating evil that ran his family to ground, Michael thinks. Here is the man who has the very government at his disposal.

Michael’s silence must anger the other man because his voice turns cruel. The General slaps his hands on his knees and Michael meets his beady eyes with equal amounts of animosity.

“Right. Well, since you are so willing to forfeit your life, let’s think of it this way. We know where everyone you care about on this planet currently resides.” The General leans forward in his chair, threatening Michael in a tone one would use when discussing car maintenance.

“If you want to keep your friends and family safe you’ll do this with us, and you’ll notice I’m not even asking that you come quietly. Whether you believe it or not, you’ll see that we help people much more than we hurt. And honestly Michael, are you willing to die ignorant of your family’s well being?”

Michael isn’t going to answer that question since saying the answer aloud is too much like making a decision. So he deflects, “You do hurt. And when you do, people die.”

The General sits back in his seat, a smirk spreading on his face that sends a shiver down Michael’s back. He’d almost describe it like someone walked over his grave, but there is no metaphor to be made. The General has done it, literally.

Then the old man slams the first nail in his coffin. “I could say the same thing about you.”

Michael can feel a nosebleed coming on.

“Give us a name and we’ll handle Scylla,” The General wraps up. He looks as if he knows he’s already won.

Michael is torn. He doesn’t want The Company to have their prize back nor does he trust that Agent Self is going to do anything good with the technology.

To tell the truth, they didn’t know what they were going to do with Scylla once they had it anyway. But knowing that doesn’t make Michael feel any better about giving it back to the people they stole it from.

“Self has it. He’s probably selling it to the highest bidder as we speak.” The confession comes with a flash of Self’s smarmy lying face and Michael figures he might be a just a little bitter.

As The General nods to the bodyguard behind him and stands, Michael grabs at the other man’s sleeve, earning a glare but the attention he seeks. “How do I know you won’t kill us anyway?”

The General shrugs again, harder this time to displace Michael’s hand from his arm. “You don’t. But legacy matters around here Michael. Have some faith in us.”

Michael will never be convinced, but dealing with the Devil is a game better left to the dead and dying.

The General leaves, his tread heavy on the cold floor and Michael shivers again.  
_

When he slips in the door, Michael’s sitting up in bed. He’s kept him waiting long enough, Lincoln thinks, but he’s been preparing for that look – where Michael’s soft eyes go even softer and he looks so disappointed that Lincoln feels like he should go find that puppy he’d kicked. Only Lincoln isn’t into torturing animals.

Lincoln’s suit says it all. He can’t remember the last time he wore one without a motive. Personal business has never warranted a clean cut look. But the collar of his new starched shirt is stiff against his neck and the cut of his blazer perfectly tailored. Its The Company’s uniform, he was told by a couple of thick-necked guys who added that if he refused to wear it he wouldn’t be taken to see his brother at all.

And The Company knew what wearing it would say to Michael. That Lincoln has surrendered.

So now, instead to trying to break the news gently, Lincoln is desperately racking his brain for ways to assure Michael that when he goes under the knife he’ll be right there by his side. The Company may have them in hock, and Lincoln hasn’t yet allowed the depth of that to penetrate quite yet, but Lincoln will eat a bullet before he lets The Company tear what’s left of his family apart.

“You going to stare me back to good health?” Michael asks as Lincoln thinks. “Because if I had any idea you had that kind of mojo, I would have tapped it years ago.”

Michael’s tiny smile breaks what’s left of Lincoln’s heart and from the slow way it fades, his brother’s aware of that fact.

“I never would have kept that kind of secret from you,” Lincoln says seriously. He pulls a metal stool from the corner of the room up to Michael’s bedside and sits. “I hear you had some company.”

Michael frowns and looks away. He fiddles with the edge of the white sheet covering his legs. Lincoln watches the long fingers work and tries not the think of the last time he saw his little brother lay in a hospital bed. He was so much smaller then, but they were just as lost.

The room is so cold that Lincoln can feel the chill through his layers of clothing. How Michael’s faring in practically nothing incites Lincoln to scoot closer, until his knees are touching the mattress and he can feel just a bit of Michael’s body heat.

He continues to talk, even though his throat feels like its closing. “The General probably made you all sorts of promises. He made me a few as well.”

Michael looks up at that. His eyes are narrowed but not accusing, just wondering. “And you believed a few?”

“Of course not,” Lincoln growls. “But he can save you and he’ll leave LJ alone. And I can only ensure that if I’m here, by your side, watching him.”

Michael’s eyes darken in his pale face. “We’ll be his operatives, not the other way around, Linc. But you don’t need to convince me, I -” He bites his lip, looks like he wants to say more, but he stays silent.

Lincoln wants to be surprised, wishes he was, but The General is a convincing bastard. Jesus, he thinks, it’s only been twelve hours and months of fight have already leached from their souls like blood down a drain. Maybe, because too much of that has been shed as it is.

Michael’s so quiet. Lincoln just looks at him for a long minute, trying to see if there’s a visible difference between the brother he saw running, so hard, so strong, from the operatives’ just hours before and the sick man in front of him.

He still looks strong, just as healthy but for the pallor of his sun kissed skin and his eyes. Michael’s eyes look so old. So tired. Still the beautiful blue-green of always, shining with intelligence and usually with a plan cooking in their depths, but resolute in a way that Lincoln hasn’t seen since before Michael entered Fox River.

Decision made, surrender given.

Lincoln doesn’t realize that he’s reached for Michael’s hand until an answering clench of fingers snaps him into awareness.

The warmth between their palms is reassuring and Lincoln indulges in the feeling for as long as the moment will allow. He doesn’t care about the cameras that are doubtlessly spying on this intimacy or how The Company might view this uncharacteristic show of affection.

The same way they were united in Fox River, they remain – if a little frayed around the edges.

Their adversaries are the cause for all of that.

“I gave them Self,” Lincoln informs him. Someone should have to pay for all of this heartache. And if Self has volunteered to play the patsy then Lincoln can give him some tips on how to run.

Michael flashes a rueful grin as if he’s reading Lincoln’s mind. “I did too. The General didn’t even bother to thank me.”

“I’d say I’m surprised but-…” Lincoln lets the unsaid say it all.

They’re still holding hands. Sharing the same space, only inches between Michael’s thigh and his arm but Lincoln decides that his brother will have to pull away first. Lincoln needs the touch.

Wishes he had more, so he isn’t startled in the least when Michael asks, “Have you seen Sara?”

There’s no way Lincoln can continue down the path his thoughts have travelled. Fate in the form of a pretty doctor with an equally tragic life won’t allow it again.

Lincoln lets his hand go limp inside Michael’s grasp. Waits for the other man to pull away. “No. She’s been looking at X-rays and talking to your doctors since I got here.”

“I wonder if they’ve offered her the same deal we were given,” Michael muses, looking hopeful.

Lincoln licks at suddenly dry lips. “Would you want that really? She’d be just as obligated as we are.”

Michael shrugs. “Or she could have a life? Maybe they offered her freedom?”

“At our expense,” Lincoln fills in. It’s a thought he’s had more than once since arriving to this secret location. And seeing as he’s gladly taken up the burden to keep his family safe, extending the scope isn’t difficult.

Sara may not have been Lincoln’s family before but she is now. Michael’s said as much. With this deal, maybe they’re giving her the chance to wait and live with Michael in peace after the dust has settled. She’ll wait. Of that, Lincoln is certain.

Even if there’s a flicker of uncertainty in Michael’s eye.

“You’re scheduled to go under the knife three hours from now,” Lincoln pats Michael’s covered leg with his free hand, another point of contact. “They sent me in to tell you that.”

“No better way to seal the deal,” Michael jokes without a smile.

“I’m sure Sara will be in soon. To see that you’re okay before –.” Lincoln’s words slam to a halt and he finds that he’s suddenly terrified. Beyond the unknown future, there’s the simple fact that his brother could die on the operating table. Lincoln hasn’t allowed the fear to consume him before, not even when he entered the Company’s headquarters, but it does now and he feels as if he’s being pressed flat by a roller.

Tears and humiliation aren’t far behind so Lincoln does the first thing that comes to mind and sits up to press his lips to Michael’s smooth forehead.

Lincoln kisses him because Michael still hasn’t let go of his hand. Because Michael looks a little like that boy twenty years ago with the bruises on this face and arms from a horrible excuse of a foster parent and Lincoln feels as helpless as he was then, even with the blood of the abuser on his hands.

Lincoln’s lips stick slightly when he pulls away and he can’t look at Michael’s face. He doesn’t want to see the shock.

Then Michael’s there, squeezing his hand again. Turning it over so that with the palm up, Michael can bear down and hold on.

Michael’s still so strong. Lincoln wonders how he could have forgotten for even a second.  
_

Michael’s first kiss was when he was sixteen. The kisser was his brother.

But it isn’t a simple as it seemed. Nor was it so complicated. Not to Michael, at least.

See, when someone is more than a sibling, more than a parent, even, when someone is your whole world, there’s very little that you wouldn’t do for them. And they can do no wrong.

Michael hadn’t put up a fight. Not at all. Not if he didn’t want to make Lincoln cry more. Someone had to show his brother that he was wanted. Even if that meant being smashed into the couch cushions, mouth pursed awkwardly underneath the sloppy onslaught of a whiskey laced tongue.

Michael could taste Lincoln’s salty tears on his lips when he opened them slightly. He could feel the desperation in his brother’s grasp, in the stiffness of his body as it settled half on his hip and half off.

They’ve been in the apartment for less than a week, so Michael could still smell the musk of the second hand couch. It clashed with the freshly painted walls and the sharp tang of Lincoln’s aftershave.

Lincoln grunted and Michael brought his focus back to the feel Lincoln’s hands on his chest, unbuttoning his school shirt and splaying over his chest, cupping him like a girl then raking his blunt nails over his nipples, shocking a startled jerk from Michael.

“Linc,” he breathed between them, pushing into his brother’s body at the same time he tried to pull away, slightly scared.

At the sound, Lincoln recoiled, his eyes blinking owl-like at Michael then sliding quickly into horror.

“Oh God.”

He sat up as if to flee and Michael didn’t think, just reached out and grabbed his brother’s shirtsleeve. He levered up into Lincoln’s body and brushed their lips together before he could be pushed aside.

He wanted to be there for Lincoln. To take care of him, because since he’d experienced the depth of Lincoln’s sorrow he thought that he might be able to ease the pain.

He knew that something in Lincoln wanted him to do so.

Michael couldn’t be Lisa but in that strange fleeting moment, he wanted to be.  
_

Lincoln was prosecuted as an adult at sixteen.

As “a prime example of escalating delinquency”, Lincoln plead guilty to one count of assault and battery and served six months in a minimum-security prison.

Michael was out of the hospital and in another foster home by the time he was released and Lincoln visited him. He watched Michael’s new so-called family with open suspicion, ate their food, and answered their questions about what he was planning to do in the short year before he turned eighteen.

He answered, knowing that he wasn’t going back to the foster home all the way across town but that if he said he was rooming with another ex-con he’d never see Michael again. So he played nice, something he’d learned with black eyes and bloody noses in prison, and after he’d hugged Michael good night, he put a small jar in the hand of the salt-and-peppered haired man who’d urged his brother to call him dad (the third one to do so, by Michael’s reporting).

“These belonged to the last man that touched my brother,” He said sweetly, winking at the man’s clueless wife washing dishes in the kitchen.

Then he left, five teeth rattling in the glass behind him.

He was temporarily banned from seeing Michael for a week or two afterwards but when he saw his little brother again the tight hug he received and beaming smile was worth the punishment.

As was the wide berth Michael’s foster parents gave him whenever he was around. He never had to answer another question.  
_

LJ sounds so resigned Lincoln wants to scream. To storm his way outside of this office disguised as a bedroom on the twenty-third floor of a corporate building and say ‘fuck you’ to the General and the contract and everyone who put him in this impossible position. He almost wishes he never went after Michael. Almost, but never truly. Even with LJ on the phone, thousands of miles away.

“It’ll be just a little longer,” he reassures his son for the third time – this conversation.

“I know, Sara told me Uncle Mike is in some trouble.” LJ’s sigh is audible over the line. “I just wish I could help.”

Lincoln nods even though LJ’s blind to the gesture. “You’re helping just being safe. How’s school?”

Lincoln listens to him talk and thinks how lucky they’ve been so far. How he never thought he’d get the chance to listen to his son talk about getting ready for graduation and the big question of what comes after.

He’s doing so well in his classes, focused in a way that Lincoln wants to attribute to the death of his mother and the need to make her proud but when Lincoln asks LJ says is because the teachers don’t look too closely at average kids.

Lincoln feels horrible then. Thinks about all of the ways that his bad decisions have ruined his son’s life, like father like son, but LJ keeps talking, tries to keep him talking and Lincoln remembers that he doesn’t know when he’ll able to do this again. He never knows when the last conversation really will be the last.

“I’m sorry,” LJ says the morning of Michael’s surgery.

“Never be,” Lincoln answers immediately although he doesn't know why.

“I wish I’d visited you more. You know, in prison. If I’d known-,”

Lincoln interrupts before he can get started. “No one knew what was going to happen so there’s no good in wishing and hoping for the past to change. It never does. All that matters is now and you make it matter for me.”

There’s a pause where Lincoln wonders if he’s made LJ uncomfortable. He isn’t normally so effusive. But when LJ responds he can hear the smile in his voice.

“I love you too, Dad.”  
_

He can feel Sara before he sees her. Specifically, he can feel her eyes. He always could. Even back in Fox River. She has a way of looking at him, examining him that makes Michael feel stripped to the bone, cracked open just wide enough for her kindness and grace to seep in and make him better.

So, when he finally sees her and she looks away, face racked with what looks like guilt, he’s scared.

Michael’s reminded as she comes into his room that he has no idea what they’ve been offering her or threatening to take away. With all the talk of living a fluffy life after The Company, he hasn’t really had the chance to think of what Sara would think of all of this. Her cause is as intrinsically twined as his own and she’s lost just as much.

If anything, Michael thinks with building dread, she has just cause to be very angry that he’d give up Scylla, give up their fight against The Company, so that he can go off and work for the villains. Sucre and Mahone as well, who’ve been risking just as much, if not more. Does Michael have the right to take away their choice to fight?

His first words are, “I’m sorry.”

And whatever it was that made Sara look so guilty immediately morphs into sadness. She rushes to his bedside and wraps her arms around him carefully, as if he’s going to break, and Michael responds by pulling her in tighter, drowning himself in her jasmine scent and the softness of her body.

They hold on to each other for what feels like forever and not long enough. Not for Michael, who wishes he’d seen her first rather than Lincoln. Wishes that he wasn’t also thinking of how his brother was as reluctant to let Michael go as he is to loosen his grip. Sara leans away and brushes her hands over his face.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for, Michael. I want to you live and you shouldn’t sacrifice yourself for us.” Up close, Michael can see the worry lining her face. The dark circles under her eyes from the nights she’s stayed awake in the warehouse, thinking of ways to get him the help he needs.

He tells himself that this is what will help her as well, even if his heart is still waiting for the other shoe to drop. And he knows it will. Michael’s intuition has never let him down.

“It’s only two years,” he whispers, watching her face closely for a reaction. “And they promised that you and LJ and the guys will be safe. We can be together.”

At this, Sara sighs. Her whole body heaving with the emotion behind it. She tips her head back, looking as if she’s begging from help from above and Michael clutches at her arms and gently shakes her.

“Hey, what’s wrong? What did they say to you?”

“They told me the truth,” Sara says, looking at him. “And I realized that even if the invitation was extended to me that I couldn’t bring myself to agree to work for them.”

Michael nods. That’s fair. “Okay, so I’ll do my time and afterwards we can disappear.”

Her fingers tighten on his cheeks, tears glistening in her big brown eyes. “I’d hoped you wouldn’t have to go back to prison in order to live.”

Michael kisses her then, seeking shelter from the onslaught of sorrow. Sara responds, moaning into his lips and wrapping her arms around him. She’s shaking by the time he retreats.

“So I’ll have the surgery,” he says in the silence that follows.

Sara braces herself on his shoulders. “And they’re shipping me back to Panama as soon it’s over.”

Michael shouts. “What? No!”

“It’s for the best. LJ needs someone and I don’t know if could -,” The tears spill over and Sara covers her mouth briefly, as if to keep in a sob. “I don’t think I’d be able to leave if I see you after the surgery.”

Michael hugs her again and can feel her crying. He doesn’t want her to leave, but he knows that there’s nothing for her here. He wants to keep her safe.

But it still hurts. More than Michael had originally thought when he’d discarded this possibility. Now, with the reality crying on his shoulder, Michael’s never felt so hopeless.

“What am I going to do without you?”

Sara pulls away and wipes her tears. “Firstly, you’re going to get through this surgery or so help me, Michael, I’ll kill you.”

She smiles weakly and Michael returns it.

“Secondly, you and Lincoln are going to learn how to work for them without becoming them.” Her voice gains strength. “Fight them every step of the way if you have to, but you come back to me the same good man you are now. Do you understand?”

Michael nods, speechless in the face of her tenacity and how much he loves her. He wishes more than ever that she could be by his side.

He’s kissing every part of her face he can when she chuckles wetly in his ear, “Sans the tumor, of course.”

Michael kisses her laughing mouth.  
_

The last thing he sees before they lay him on the operating table and ask him to count backwards from one hundred are Sara and Lincoln standing outside of the Plexiglas doors.

He dreams of them when he’s under.

But not of their future, of his fantasy.

Lincoln’s strong body lifting Sara’s slight build up in his arms and kissing her deep as she wraps her legs around his waist.

Michael’s watching. Sitting in a chair or on a bed. The scene changes every time he tries to focus on something other than the two people he loves the most.

His heart’s pounding so that he can only imagine how they’re feeling. But he doesn’t have to imagine, not really, since he’s felt the steady of rhythm of Sara’s heart against his chest. And as for the beating of Lincoln’s heart? Michael’s felt that like the flow of blood in his veins, like the rush and release of the air in his lungs.

Lincoln’s never gone beyond stripping the clothes from his body nor has he penetrated him – God, Michael’s entertained the thought so many times – yet Michael can practically feel the spread inside him.

He hears Sara’s familiar moan at the sensation and suddenly he’s kissing the moans from her lips as Lincoln thrusts into her body. Lincoln’s hands wander over his neck and smooth down his shoulders, catch on his fingers

Then they’re all moving in tandem. Lincoln sounds like he’s coming and so does Sara, yet Michael’s stuck not feeling enough to go over and feeling enough of what matters to be fulfilled.

When he’s shaking off the cobwebs of his dreams, Michael can only remember the sensation of Lincoln kissing his forehead and he’s amused because that wasn’t a dream at all.


	2. Part 2

_“To me the front is a mysterious whirlpool. Though I am in still water far away from its centre, I feel the whirl of the vortex sucking me slowly, irresistibly, inescapably into itself.”_

 

Michael spends one week in recovery. The first couple of days are blurred but he remembers seeing Sara one more time, her eyes red rimmed and his hand in her own.

She was saying something but he couldn’t make it out, brain surgery and all, then his brother’s by her side, an arm around her shoulders and Sara had turned her sad face into Lincoln’s neck. Michael must have closed his eyes after that because when he opens them again there’s a man in scrubs at his bedside changing his IV bag.

His mouth is so dry that Michael doesn’t even notice that he’s having trouble moving his lips until the doctor or nurse is pushing him back down to the bed, shoving a plastic cup of water into his outstretched palm.

Michael tries to control his hacking coughs and swallow down what feels like the whole of the Sahara then the complication of wanting to drink the manna in his hand but being unable to tell if his mouth is open or closed. Panic is settling in on top of what feels like a rhino battering about his head when efficient hands tip his head back and begin to pour sips of water down his throat.

Then Michael quickly has to focus only on swallowing and breathing. One big breath in through his congested nose and another out when he’s taken in the cooling liquid. The man gives him enough time between sips to revel in the feeling of it going down his throat and spreading inside his very empty stomach, and Michael’s so grateful by the time he’s full that there are tears in his eyes.

The nurse, doctor, or whoever this wonderful person is sets the drink aside and walks away as if he didn’t just save Michael’s life.

“Give the painkillers a few hours to wear off and you’ll start to regain mobility. We’ll have to do a week or so of rehab but you’ll be good as new in no time.” Michael looks at the new room as the man picks up the Kleenex and box of rubber gloves Michael apparently knocked over in his fit.

It’s much smaller and completely enclosed the way a bedroom is although just as soundless as the operating room he went to sleep in. White walls, no windows, a simple wooden chair in a corner and a dresser across from the bed covered with neatly stacked black and white clothing.

Michael thinks that this might be his dormitory for the duration. He only has one question though damned if he can get his uncooperative lips to ask it. Again, the omnipotent nurse-cum-doctor interprets his childish miming into an actual request.

“Your brother? He’s already visited you for the day and gone to training. I’ll let him know that you’re conscious and see if he can get clearance to come in before dinnertime. How’s that sound?”

The man doesn’t wait for an actual answer, maybe because Michael’s certain he looks dumbstruck at all of the things horribly wrong with what he’s just learned and left alone in the room with only his racing thoughts.  
_

They don’t want Michael to leave the room unless he’s going to rehab. That’s quickly made obvious when he realizes by the end of his third waking day that even though speech is slow and slurred, his limbs are completely functioning.

His sense of balance is shot to hell and every step sort of makes his head feel like an elephants doing the macarena on his skull, but Michael is done with pissing in that metal bowl. Plus, he wants to see what Lincoln described as “not jail, but not The Hilton either”.

Michael makes it out the door and down a nondescript white hallway before a severe-looking man in black sweats does a double take.

“Michael,” he says, as if he knows him. Michael’s tempted to deny the name. “You can’t be out here.”

Michael has to lick his lips to talk but he manages to eek out a “why” before he has to slump against the wall. He knows his legs can carry him farther, he’s sure of it, but his annoying brain has other plans.

The man pulls him off the wall with very little trouble and leads him back down the hall. Michael, although noting that he has a few inches and possibly pounds on the stranger, has no choice but to grudgingly follow.

“No clearance yet. But give it about a week and I’ll have you in there with Lincoln.”

They’re at his door soon enough and Michael cringes looking in, it seems so small. The man doesn’t push him in, just leaves him leaning in the doorway, a prisoner with an option, while he talks at Michael.

“We’ll progress much quicker with the both of you working together and you’ll be out of here soon if the General has anything to say about it.”

“The General,” Michael hisses at the thought. The man, slight and deceptively young- looking now that Michael sees him head on, smirks.

“He’s been very inquisitive about your recovery. I would think he’s almost concerned,” The man shrugs. “But I know him better. Well, in you go. Don’t let one anyone else catch you here unsupervised.”

“Who are you?” Michael blurts, his mouth finally deciding to do what he wants when he wants it.

“Oh,” The man chuckles and runs a hand through his dark hair messing up the slick back hairdo. “I’m W. Not like Walter or Washington or anything short for something else. Just the letter ‘W’. You’ll meet Lincoln’s trainer ‘L’ in a few days, I guess.”

W sticks out his hand and Michael shakes it, firming his grip when W does and frowning when the man says, “Good,” like he just passed a test. He’s left standing in the doorway, looking down the way W came and staking the odds of being caught again when what is definitely a guard comes down the hall, the sharp cut of his jacket bulging where there’s a gun concealed at his waist.

Michael simply nods at the suit and steps back into the room. He still has to pee.  
_

“How about ice cream?”

“How about you leave me alone?”

“We can go to the new Bruce Willis movie you want to see so badly. I’ll even get us some popcorn.”

“Like we can afford it.”

“Yeah, we can actually.”

“Lincoln, don’t lie.”

“Hey, fuck you. If I say we can afford it, we can.”

“…”

“Look, I’m sorry, Mikey. Just – you can’t stay in here all summer! You have to get out. There are other fish in the sea.”

“Wow, you couldn’t have even thought of something original?”

“Don’t be a jerk.”

“You can leave now. Tell Lisa I said hi.”

“Veronica’s in town actually. You know she’ll want to see you.”

“She’ll be back. Although God knows why, there’s no one here worth the trouble.”

“Don’t expect dinner tonight, asshole.”

“When do I ever?”

Michael can feel the apartment door slam through three walls of separation. He’s seventeen and just had his heart broken by a Nicole Warton, a leggy raven-haired girl with green eyes and skin the color of fall leaves.

It had been quick, how hard he’d fallen for her and it took him completely by surprise. Michael had avoided her for a week. Then, Nicole, headstrong and brave girl that she was, confronted him at lunch in front of God and half of the student body.

Her hair was wild like a bush burning to cinders and Michael couldn’t keep his eyes from drifting upwards, to watch the sway of her curls when she put her hands on her hips, when she stepped up to him until he had to look her in the blazing green eye.

“You could have just said you didn’t like me,” Nicole said, face alight with embarrassment and pride.

“But that would have been a lie,” Michael replied simply, looking down to her full lips that parted with surprise.

They didn’t kiss then but they did the next day. Michael had to catch on that she wanted him to come to her and not the other way around. That she wanted and expected everything. Michael had to discover that he was okay with that and gave what he could.

Lincoln said they would last because who wouldn’t love Michael as a boyfriend?

But it only took three months for Nicole to go looking for someone else who could give her even more and Michael let her wander away without a fight. There was no point in fighting for someone with only half a heart.

Michael didn’t expect Lincoln to understand. He hadn’t thought that he could feel so strongly about anyone else. And so somehow, that was Lincoln’s fault.  
_

Lincoln says, “You’ll see when you get there” and watches the frustration grow in his brother’s eyes.

He’s not trying to hide anything. He isn't told to stay quiet about his training, but Lincoln’s mind goes blank whenever he’s trying to describe the process.

It’s like the training he’s heard soldiers get in the military, mixed with psychological conditioning that can only come from incarceration. It’s not prison and it’s damn close to the military but it isn’t that either, even though Lincoln knows that his trainer, L, a tall, lean muscled man in his late twenties, is a Marine.

It’s indescribable, the lessons on gun handling and knife fighting and mixed martial arts that meld into the nightlong sessions about geographical politics and economics.

Lincoln’s brain and body hurt at the end of every day, and there’s still Michael to worry about.

But he’s getting better, Lincoln can tell. Michael freaked him right out in the beginning, unable to talk, his face lined with pain from headaches that would make his eyes water. It took Michael’s therapist explaining everything to Lincoln in a calm, steady tone for Lincoln to listen.

“I don’t want you to get too excited.” Lincoln jokes just to see Michael roll his eyes.

They haven’t done a lot of talking. Michael’s speaking more than he did when he first woke but Lincoln can still see when his mouth gets the best of him or when the headaches get bad enough to keep his brother quiet for a while.

Lincoln doesn’t mind. He’s fine with just watching Michael fight sleep or glare at him for not answering questions that Lincoln doesn’t quite know how to answer yet. Like where Sara’s gone or when they’ll be able to talk to anyone outside of this windowless, featureless complex The Company has moved them to.

Lincoln doesn’t know a lot. But Michael will figure that out soon enough.

For now, he’s fine with sitting by his bedside in that uncomfortable chair Michael’s therapist puts back in the corner when Lincoln’s ready to leave, like he’s not going to sit in it again tomorrow and the day after. Like Michael doesn’t sometimes ask that Lincoln forgo it all together and sit next him in bed. Michael’s therapist, a quiet man who has yet to offer his name, is quick to leave on those days.

“Don’t be mad,” Lincoln says into Michael’s clean hair.

He’s crunched into the bend of the hospital bed, lying on his side so that both legs will fit beside his brother’s fidgeting body. His ass is almost hanging off but that hasn’t dissuaded him. Not when Michael’s almost curled into his chest and he can smell the bar soap Michael washes with underneath the bleach they use to wash their regulation sweats.

“I’m not,” Michael lies. “I just- It’s so frustrating.”

“I know. But it’ll get better.” Lincoln doesn’t know if that’s true or not but he wants it to be. If only for Michael’s sake.

Michael nods and his eyes blink sleepily. It’ll be time to leave soon. Lincoln gets only an hour to see Michael right before he goes to bed. Lincoln doesn’t question it; he doesn’t fight even though there’s still a rebellious little kid in the corner of his mind screaming about the injustice of it all.

Michael’s still alive. LJ is still alive and hopefully with Sara. That’s all that matters for now.

“I’m not mad at you.” Michael reiterates.

Lincoln nods because he knows. He understands the distinction.  
_

Lincoln slept a full 24 hours his first day on death row.

Exhaustion from the case nearly drove him into a coma and it’s horrible culmination had him desperate for any possible respite.

He dreamt of the courtroom. The judge’s gavel and the jury’s unrepentant gazes. The video evidence of a murder that never happened.

He saw LJ’s horrified face along side Veronica’s. Lisa’s honest confusion because death meant that there was no waiting around for parole and no coming back; she still cared after all this time.

Lincoln saw death in his dreams and recoiled with fear into the only comfort he’s ever fully embraced.

Michael.

He dreamt of Michael as a baby, as a child, as a young man, and grown man. He saw his brother smile with love and trust and for no reason at all. Michael crying in anger and sadness. His laughter.

Michael’s scars and bruises. His dark curly hair and the deep summer tan of his skin.

Michael kissing and being kissed. Lisa kissing Michael. Veronica kissing Michael. Michael’s girlfriends moaning under his little brother’s questing mouth. His flash of pride when they’d come from his cock, his hands, his tongue.

Lincoln touching Michael and Michael touching him. The part of his thighs. The thickness of his cock and the curve of his ass.

Michael’s face ruddy from sleep and his lips swollen in the morning light.

Michael moaning his name as he jerks his own cock at night, all alone in his apartment.

Lincoln watching him but being unable to do anything, knowing that he’s dead and buried.

When he awoke, Lincoln had come in his pants and his pillow was wet with tears.  
_

The next time Lincoln sees Michael, he’s holding a Glock in his hands. W, L’s partner in crime and expert on all things that can be shot, is showing Michael how to hold the gun properly.

“Firing one of these isn’t like firing a revolver and you’ll notice it immediately. Try not to like it too much,” W instructs with a wink and a smile. The man is endlessly cheerful, a trait that had Lincoln convinced that he was the more dangerous of the pair within five minutes of meeting them.

“I’ve fired one before,” Michael says quietly, almost as if he’s ashamed to admit it. L startles him by clearing his throat and Michael’s cheeks actually color, his hand twitches the gun down and away like he wants to conceal it.

W takes the weapon out of Michael’s hand before he drops it.

“Looks like the gang’s all here.” W continues to talk, introducing Michael to L as “Little Rambo” while Lincoln looks at Michael decked out in the same white shirt and black sweats as everyone else.

The scabs at the base of his nose from the endoscope that went through his nose and from where they took out the tumor in bits from his brain are getting darker, older. The renewed flush of his cheeks and the alertness in Michael’s blue eyes are all a relief to see. Lincoln looks at all of it and he wants to smile even as he laments where they are and what Michael was just doing – because he never, ever wanted to see a gun in his little brother’s hand – but he just smirks, nods when Michael relaxes.

It takes every fiber of his being not to flinch the first time Michael fires the gun. And while he still doesn’t know what to think of his trainers, he’s grateful that L and W say nothing about how off he is for the rest of the day.  
_

The slick sound of his hand against his skin is hard to drown out in the empty room. The complex is so quiet, all the time, and it’s hard for Lincoln to focus on anything other than being alone.

It’s a new concept, if true only in the immediate sense.

He hasn’t slept alone since he’s been in jail. There’s always been someone sharing a room and it was never silent in the warehouse with its echoing walls. Silence is completely new to him. Slightly terrifying.

He can hear his heartbeat, the rush of his breath out of his nose and mouth when he gasps. The mattress is hard beneath him and the springs creak whenever he shifts.

Lincoln dives into his head and uses the silence to think of nothing wet heat around his cock. Suction and pressure. Someone’s lips, full and dripping saliva from the corners whenever Lincoln fucks into their mouth.

He moans and the sound is swallowed up into the darkness. Lincoln briefly spares a thought for the guard possibly standing outside his door, scrunches his closed eyes tighter and increases the pumps of his hand on his cock.

Hotter, tighter, he thinks, then Sara’s underneath him, the smooth pale skin of her back facing him. He thrusts into her from behind and she throws back her head, looks over her shoulder to urge him on. Her face is flushed and shining, her lips red from where he pushed his cock inside repeatedly.

Lincoln’s heard her moan before, with his brother, and he supplants the sounds here. Fucking her harder when she can’t make any noise at all. When her face is buried in the pillows and she coming on his cock.

It’s not the first time he’s fantasized about her. He feels terrible every time. But only because the clench of Sara’s cunt always transforms into Michael’s ass or mouth.

Michael always moans around his cock and slips his eyes closed like a glutton. His eyelashes fan beautifully on his hollowed cheeks as he sucks, his tongue plying along the underside of Lincoln’s cock and teasing the slit of his head.

Lincoln imagines his ass coming down on his face, because of course he’d want to lick that ass while Michael sucks his cock. He parts the globes with his hands, digs his fingernails into the soft firm skin just to see the blush when he released them. He’d never hesitate to lick Michael from crest to cleft just to hear him cry out and try to shove his face down on Lincoln’s cock to gag the noises.

Lincoln would want to hear every single one.

The taste of Michael’s ass would be rich and salty. His hole flutters underneath Lincoln’s tongue, clenching when he tries to pry him loose with the tip then giving up entirely as Lincoln parts him further, opens him up.

Lincoln never gets farther than the press of his brother’s ass against his face, the furtive thrusts that have Michael writhing and trying to swallow his cock. He imagines that prying Michael open with his fingers, sinking in as far as he can go with his wriggling tongue would push his brother over the edge and he’d feel the warm spurt of his come on his chest and belly.

Then Sara’s there, licking along his abdomen and shoving two fingers covered with the bitter stuff into Lincoln’s mouth, when he bumps the back of Michael’s throat and comes so hard that he’s shoved back into his small, lonely bed.

He shivers for long minutes as he tries to catch his breath in the darkness. Wipes his hand on the sweatpants he discards on the floor and falls asleep wishing he was back in the warehouse, or on the beach, or anywhere but in this tiny room.

This new silent prison.  
_

When Lincoln thinks back on the last two weeks its hard not to put to music. It’s not some training montage – it definitely wasn’t when they were sweating bullets and almost throwing up from ten-mile runs on the gym’s treadmills. And Lincoln certainly wasn’t having a Journey music moment when Michael had a minor seizure from exhaustion at the end of his first day of martial arts training.

No, the music he hears when he thinks of their training, when he thinks of the way they were molded from convicts into something even harder and more wary is like the punk rock he listened to as a teenager. All crashing drums and angry thwaying guitars overlapped with screaming, words unintelligible.

Their training is like reliving adolescence where in the end they each have just enough to get by but not enough to know anything at all.

Wherever they are seems deserted other than L, W, and a handful of guards making sure they don’t wander. Everyday L or W wakes them up and inspects their bare rooms as they get dressed, then takes them to physical fitness where they do sit-ups, push-ups, chin-ups, and lunges until they feel like passing out.

Then they’re brought plastic wrapped sandwiches, lunchmeat on dry bread with water to wash it all down, and lead to communal showers. They have exactly fifteen minutes of hot water with which to wash themselves, shave, and clean their teeth with toothbrushes they have to leave there.

It’s the only time Lincoln and Michael are left alone together. They waste the first ten minutes trying not to look at each other’s naked bodies, although Lincoln can’t help but catalogue how much weight Michael’s lost and the curve of his spine down to his ass.

If only to calm the rush of blood to awkward parts, Lincoln tells Michael about the extra training he’s had in lock picking and identity theft.

He listens as Michael wonders about Sara and LJ and Sucre. About the one time Michael saw his unnamed therapist on the phone. He tells Michael about the tracking device in his thigh and how he’d been strongly dissuaded from removing it unless he wants to cut into his femoral artery.

Lincoln has a scab there and he shows Michael only because he asks. Not because he wants to see if his brother’s eyes will travel over his cock and down his legs or up to lock on his mouth for just a second.

Even if they do.

Those fifteen minutes feel like mere seconds before they’re back out, separated for the rest of the day in classroom-like dungeons.

They’ve learned that their job is essentially reconnaissance therefore they need the basics of a handful of languages, but that phrase books will always be their friends. They learned that fighting would sometimes be necessary but that more likely they’ll need to run and shoot.

They also learned that The Company isn’t really one body at all. It's made of many parts and players, singular people and large conglomerations. Most of which are normal and charitable and, at the surface, legitimate.

“We’re not trying to convert you or make you think that whatever shit you guys have been through isn’t valid,” L says as they leave a bastardized version of a library one day and meet up with Michael and W in a hallway. “But The Company has been good to me and my family. I’ve seen more of the good than the bad and frankly, a lot of the bad has been to people who deserved it.”

Lincoln glances at Michael, holding his tongue because L has seemed like an okay guy until now.

The tall blond still holds up his hands as if he knows what’s going through his mind.

“Okay, look at it this way, right? Gangs are horrible now. They steal and murder people and deal drugs. But way back when, some gangs used to be a version of a neighborhood watch.

They kept the people safe, kept them from being harassed by people who didn’t like their culture or where they were from. They protected those who paid for the help even if they had to use violence.”

Michael’s look of disbelief is probably a mirror to Lincoln’s own. Only Lincoln’s glaring much more.

“So you guys are the modern day Robin Hood?” Michael asks.

W shrugs. “No, maybe not. But to some people out there we might be.”

“Don’t forget,” L adds. “Your parents were a part of this too. Why would they be if they didn’t think they were doing some good?”

Because they were as clueless as the rest of the world, Lincoln wants to say.

He thinks about his parents more than he ever has before. Wonders what they would have done in his situation, how they would have reacted to see their sons as fugitives.

He’s thinking about them when they’re told that training is over and given new clothes in plastic bags with five minutes to put them on. The fit is good, too good for Wrangler jeans and Fruit of the Loom t-shirts, but it’s good to be back in regular clothing. Lincoln won’t miss the sweats.

They’re led back to the gym and their hands are zip tied at the wrist. Then cloth bags go over their heads.

“You’ve been officially activated, boys,” a voice echoes from far away. It sounds like the General, although neither of them has seen him in weeks. “Good luck.”

L and W aren’t around and in reality they probably won’t see them again.


	3. Part 3

_“By the curb toward the edge of the flagging,  
A knife-grinder works at his wheel sharpening a great knife,  
Bending over he carefully holds it to the stone, by foot and knee,  
With measur’d tread he turns rapids, as he presses with light but firm hand,  
Forth issue then in copius golden jets,  
Sparkles from the wheel.”_

 

When they were children, their mother used to take them to the zoo. She’d point out the rhinos and elephants, hype the boys up with stories of how the animals really live in the wild.

“When they’re at home they have plenty of room to roam and eat whatever they want.”

“So why did someone take them away from their homes?” Lincoln asked once.

“Because we wanted to see them here,” Their mother answered quickly. “They had another purpose.”

“But what if they just wanted to be left alone?” Lincoln demanded, pouting because it just didn’t seem fair. “What if they had a family back at home that was waiting on them?”

Michael was just a child. Barely out of the single digits, but he remembered the fear he felt just thinking about what Lincoln said. Their mother had explained that the zoo was their new home and that the animals had a new family but Lincoln’s defiant eyes screamed that he wasn’t buying it.

The idea that someone could simply snatch a child, or a father, away from his waiting family grated so badly that sometimes Lincoln would simply refuse to leave the house. Even when their mother fell ill and rarely went outside. Even when Michael would plead for Lincoln to just do it, let their mother enjoy something that she loved.

And their mother loved the zoo.

“The fresh air and freedom,” she’d tell them whenever they asked why. But Lincoln had argued with all of the vehemence an eleven years old boy could muster that he didn’t understand how watching captured animals could make anyone feel better.

He understood the concept of a prison within a prison even then. Freedom was relative.

_

**Italy**

They shove them out of a cargo plane and throw two full duffle bags at their feet.

Michael’s head is pounding, it has been since the pressure dropped and he figured out that they were on a plane. Lincoln is by his side on the tarmac, blinking at the sunlight that they haven’t seen in over a month.

They have no idea where they are and there’s no reason to run.

The cargo plane has taxied down the runway and taken off into the clear blue sky by the time Michael considers moving. The workers on the ground are starting to give them strange looks.

“Let’s go,” he says and just starts walking towards the airport. He sees Italian signage, hears it spoken by the groups of men they pass with orange cones in their hands. He can guess from the name of the airport that they’re in Rome.

He’s thinking of going to the concourse, sitting down and figuring everything out when Lincoln stops him.

He explains, “Let’s just hail a taxi.” And they squeeze through a break in the fencing out onto the street.

While Lincoln’s whistling, Michael’s thinking. He’s terrified. He goes through the duffle bag he picked up and finds a small stack of euro, some passports with their photos attached, and a file folder. This he holds onto when they get inside the cab.

“Where are we going?” asks Lincoln, stuttering through a “wait a minute, please”.

Michael reads faster than he ever has in his life. “Um, Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata.”

The cab jolts into traffic and the brothers hang on.  
_

They are there to find a professor. His schedule is laid out from 8 am to 5 pm and there’s a flight waiting for him that evening. The objective seems clear enough.

“We’re glorified babysitters,” Lincoln paraphrases.

Michael settles onto an iron bench and watches the students walking by with bags bursting with books. He tips his head into the breeze drifting through the trees and sun warming his face. He always wanted to go to Italy.

“Yeah, it looks that way.”

He feels eyes on him and glances at Lincoln who’s looking at him with suspicious eyes.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Michael frowns. “What?”

“No offense Mike, but we’re not on a holiday here,” Lincoln grumbles.

Michael gapes at him. “I don’t think I need you to remind me of that.”

“You just, I don’t know. You look like this is no big deal,” Lincoln continues, muttering like a kid with a dirty secret. “Why aren’t you freaking out?”

“Have I freaked since we’ve been picked up by The Company?” Michael asks seriously.

Lincoln seems to give that serious thought and grimaces in response.

“I’m figuring things out just like you are. I’m terrified, just like you. But I won’t risk our lives.” Michael gestures around them. “Plus, you have to admit this is a little cool. We’re in Italy, alone, or at least under the illusion. With a wad of cash.”

“A wad of what?” Lincoln rifles through his duffle. “I didn’t get any money.”

Michael grins and pats his inside jacket pocket. “Maybe The Company knows you better than we thought.”

He laughs at his brother’s scowl.

They sit quietly for a time, people watching until they hear a bell chiming the time in the distance. The crowds of students dwindle down to a few stragglers.

“We should track down this professor before he goes to lunch.” Lincoln says. “I’m hungry.”  
_

The easy part is finding the man.

He’s in his sixties with a full head of graying hair and a slightly sloped back from being scrunched behind a desk most of his adult life. He’s cordial and actually expecting them, which is a shock to both of them. He has a small bag all set for the trip to the airport and knows enough English to interpret that they’re starving for some actual food and they have some time to waste.

So he takes them to his home. Again, with the surprises. He acts as if he’s certain that they’re not there to kill him but how he can be they have no idea.

“Are you waiting for something to go horribly wrong the same way I am?” Lincoln says under his breath. They’re waiting for the train to take them back to the airport they left this morning, bellies full with sea bass, tomatoes, and capers.

They’d almost fallen out with pleasure and asked to stay.

“Just a little bit,” Michael replies, watching the exits.

The train ride is quiet and informative. The professor likes to talk so the brother’s let him, smiling and nodding as if they understand his unique blend of Italian-English.

Michael’s stomach is turning sour with worry.

So when Lincoln realizes they’re being followed through the terminal, Michael wouldn’t say he’s relieved. Well, he wouldn’t say it out loud – but he is.

Enough to find the “race” through the concourse and security nearly hilarious. No one can rush through security, not unless they want to leave all of their belongings and go shoeless to their destination.

“We’re moving faster a little, no?” The professor asks, holding his bag to him like a book.

Lincoln shakes his head while hurriedly slipping his shoes back on and retrieving his jacket from the plastic tray. “No, not at all. But if you could just -,”

Lincoln practically puts the older man’s coat on for him and points him in the right direction. Michael stifles a snort.

The two men following them get swallowed up in a crush of arriving passengers and Michael leads them to their terminal where a pretty Italian attendant opens a door down to the tarmac.

The cargo plane is waiting for them, early.

“Really?” says Michael as they strap in and the professor is taken in by a suited man to the front of the plane. “This is it?”

“Wanted espionage and danger, Mr. Bond?” Lincoln sits next him, a grin on his face.

“Say you aren’t surprised,” Michael watches the professor hand over a notebook and sit next to the suited man as if things like this happen all the time.

Lincoln nudges him with his shoulder when the plane takes off. “I am, but I’m not holding my breath that this is how it’s going to be all the time. We’ve got a good meal under our belts and a trip to Italy.”

“Since when are you the optimistic one?”

Lincoln doesn’t answer.  
_

Michael’s comfort foods were mac and cheese and mashed potatoes. Thankfully, they were also the only things Lincoln could cook with success.

They tried to get a weekly dinner menu because the next door neighbors, The Henleys, said that having children on a schedule was a good thing.

Lincoln didn’t know why that was, but he was aware that when CPS came every once in a while they interviewed the neighbors, so he tried anyway.

Monday was hot dogs and spinach. Sometimes Lincoln would forget to grab the vegetables at the store and they would go without but neither of them complained.

Tuesday: rice and beans (with the obligatory song and at least five minutes of fake farting).

Wednesday was iffy because Michael ususally had track practice until seven and Lincoln’s work tended to call him for a late shift. If Lincoln could swing it and knew that Michael could be home before it went too cold, he’d grab some fried chicken and green beans from the KFC around the corner.

Thursday: sausage. Because the deli down the street always had half-price links during the day and they smelled up the neighborhood with porky goodness. For two years, the last week of school, Lincoln would spend half his paycheck getting packs of sausage links and put them in the freezer for Michael to eat whenever.

Friday was Michael’s favorite dinner day. Mac and cheese with porkchops made by Mrs. Russell, the landlady. She was bit of a mother hen but when she came by with pies in the summer and stews in the winter she was Michael’s best friend.

She didn’t know what to think of Lincoln, had heard some bad stuff about him around the block, yet that didn’t matter when she’d see Lincoln come home late at night, haggard with grease under his fingernails and practically salivating with hunger. Mrs. Russell died a few years after Michael went to college and he recieved a notice of her funeral by her goddaughter from Long Island.

When he called to notify her that he wouldn’t be able to make it, she said that her godmother used to talk about him all the time. That she’d be happy to know how well he did for himself. Michael hasn’t had a porkchop since.

Saturdays were pancake days. Lincoln would make any type Michael requested, as long as they had the ingredients for it. Blueberry was Lincoln’s favorite, yet Michael was partial to strawberry.

Sundays came with mashed potatoes and hamburgers. Michael confessed to his brother one morning that he didn’t have to make the hamburgers at all. That he’d happily eat mashed potatoes all day long, he loved them so much.

Lincoln had laughed himself silly, dragging Michael down into his covers even as the younger boy complained that he was too old for that, his scrawny limbs flailing every which way.

“Mashed potatoes all day.” Lincoln said later as Michael caught his breath. Lincoln’s fingers twitched as if there were going to tickle him again and Michael giggled despite himself. “ I like that idea.”

Michael nodded and tried not pout when his brother left the warmth of the bed to go get started.

Lincoln’s head popped back around the corner. “Are you coming? I need someone to test all the batches.”

And Michael did. Every single bowl, every fluffy mouthful, until he had to beg for mercy and retreat to the living room couch, full to bursting.

Lincoln followed him minutes later holding the last bowl in his arms and eating straight from the wooden spoon. He’d gone without a shirt all day and Michael just made out the tiny pooch rounding out his normally flat stomach.

“Ugh,” Lincoln said around his mouthful. “Carb coma.”

Michael nodded and put his head in Lincoln’s lap when he sat down.

“Best day ever.”  
_

**Belize**

The second mission doesn’t go so smoothly.

They hardly have time to sleep on the plane when they’re landing, their old duffles replaced for new ones. Again, they’re left on the tarmac and again they have to figure out where they are. Thankfully, nearly everyone speaks English.

“Not too far from home.” Lincoln’s stripping off layers as they wander out of the airport. A few women are having trouble keeping their eyes to the front and Michael shakes his head.

They hit a wave of humidity as they exit from the terminal and join the crowds at the bus stop.

“Getting some ideas?” Michael asks.

Lincoln makes a face. “No point now.”

Michael frowns. “What’s that mean?”

The noise level from the crowd of tourists and locals alike picks up when they see the bright blue bus come around the corner.

“Nothing,” Lincoln says lightly, helping an elderly lady load up her luggage. “Where are we staying?”

It’s late afternoon, nearly dark by the time they arrive at their hotel. Something’s off the second they leave the bus. There aren’t many people walking the road to the resort even though Michael’s literature said that the hotel is fairly popular.

They enter the lobby and Michael registers under the names they read from their passports.

“Manuel and Roberto Hernandes.” With an extra wide smile for the lady behind the desk since they don’t look like their names in the slightest.

Lincoln’s restless next to him, staring at everyone who passes by and bumping his duffle into Michael’s a couple times.

They’re both exhausted so Michael can understand the anxiety but from the speed with which the attendant hands over their key cards and wishes them a goodnight their behavior must have made her nervous.

They trudge up to their room and Michael gives Lincoln a tiny smile. “First night in an actual bed in how long?”

“Months,” Lincoln sighs. “Though it feels like years.”

Michael’s smile wanes when he thinks that the last time had Sara beside him. Then Lincoln’s wide palm on his neck brings him back to reality.

“Hey, you okay?”

Michael nods and tries to give Lincoln a smile. He’s thinking of something to say when Lincoln kisses his cheek and drives the words right out of his mouth.

Almost immediately, Lincoln’s pulling away, apologizing. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking, you just looked so -,”

Michael stops him from putting the key card in the lock with a hand.

“It doesn’t matter,” he breathes, heart pounding with excitement and fear and plenty of frustration that they didn’t do this earlier.

Michael kisses him as chastely as Lincoln kissed his cheek, tasting his lips. A tongue darts out, Lincoln’s, and Michael practically growls at the sensation, meeting Lincoln’s with his own.

They’re in the very public hallway of a hotel but Michael could be on the moon for all that he cares about anyone seeing them. They don’t have to meet their mark until morning, when he’ll hand over the package and they’ll deliver it back to The Company.

Lincoln’s fiddling with the key card, unable to get it in the lock when he’s not actually looking, when there’s a tiny beep and they’re kicking the duffles inside the doorway. They kick the door closed behind them, still kissing.

It takes all of ten seconds for them to realize that there is someone else in the room.

A shadow moves away from the minibar in the corner and clears its throat.

“Well, this is something I didn’t know about you guys,” A man’s deep voice says.

Lincoln reaches for the nearest lamp as Michael flicks on the light switch and they both blink in incredulity.

“Mahone.”

“Don’t both of you rush to hug me,” He says from his lean against the dresser. Alex looks like he’s been at the resort for days in board shorts and a ghastly Hawaiian shirt. His skin is tanned and his hair slicked back. There’s a silver suitcase at his feet.

Michael’s the first to snap out of his shock. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m the delivery boy. I have a feeling that you were expecting a different time judging from the makeout session I just interrupted. When did that happen by the way?”

Alex nonchalantly sits at the foot of one of the beds and looks as if he’s waiting for an answer.

Lincoln crosses into the room and checks that the blinds are closed. “We were told we had the night. The meet wasn’t until six.”

“It’s now.” Mahone states.

“How are you even still working for them?” Michael asks. “And what changed? Are Sara and LJ okay?”

“Last I heard everything was fine, Michael. And as for the first question, I’d say pot and kettle but, oh, I already did. It turns out The Company’s amnesty program is an equal opportunity kind of thing.”

He stands and straightens the lines of his shirt. “By the way, the meet time changed because there are some guys behind me with guns that really want that package. I would suggest making a run for it as soon as I leave.”

Banging starts at the hotel door, almost as if it were cued.

“I’ll assume that’s them.” Lincoln mutters, already opening the sliding door and scoping out the patio.

“Good thing it’s only three floors up,” Mahone says. “I’ll slow them down for you.”

Michael joins Lincoln on the patio. “I’m sure we’ll meet again. So don’t get yourself shot.”

“Aw, Michael, I’d almost think you cared,” Alex says, closing the glass door behind them.

Michael’s just suggesting that Lincoln go first when his brother shoves the case into his arms and practically hauls him over the edge. Michael tries to swing into some bushes but still gets the wind knocked out of him when he lands.  
_

It starts to rain a few minutes away from the hotel. Buckets of rain that pour down on them like the ocean’s been turned over their heads.

Shooting starts a few minutes later.

Michael curses, “Shit.” The gunshots sound entirely too close for the supposed headstart they had. “Open the case.”

“What for?” But Lincoln’s already resting the briefcase on the grassy forest floor. He snaps it open and pulls out a cell phone and a gun. Michael doesn’t see the rest of the contents before he snaps it closed again. “I don’t think we’ll need anything else.”

He gives Michael the gun and goes deeper into the forest to check the call logs for some emergency number. The phone could be confidential, there could be nothing there for them at all, but odds are something’s there for just this possibility.

Michael’s learned not to underestimate their employers.

There’s zero visibly with the rain and trees, but whoever’s firing at them keeps popping away. Michael won’t shoot, can’t until he sees someone.

Lincoln comes up to him from behind. “Let’s go. There’s an airfield not far away from here. We’ve been told to hail a cab.”

They crash through the forest, guessing the direction of the road from their position, and only have a minute to wait before a brightly colored cab skids to a halt in front of them.

Its back window is shot out immediately.

“Are you going to get in?” The driver shouts in perfect English. He’s bald and dark skinned with a rosary hanging from his rearview mirror.

The brothers fall into the cab and it screeches away.

“Shoot back!” The driver yells. “They’re following us.”

But Michael can’t see a thing, it’s too dark. He’s nearly blinded when headlights beam on less than five feet behind the cab’s bumper.

The five minutes to the airfield are all shooting and trying not to be shot. The cabbie is driving wildly and scenery goes by in a blur of tourists and other cars barely colliding their own. Lincoln is by his side, holding onto Michael and the case when they go tumbling across the backseat every time the driver makes a turn.

There’s loud BOOM that sounds as if the bumper’s fallen off and sparks coming from the undercarriage.

“Flat tire,” Lincoln informs him, shifting their weight away from the lower side. “How much longer?” He shouts up to the driver.

“Not long! A minute or two! I can see the lights from the runway up ahead!” Although how the driver can see anything with his head barely above the steering wheel is a mystery.

They slide to a halt on weedy tarmac and Michael comes out of the cab on his hands and knees. He’s breathless, sweaty, and cold, yet he has the presence of mind push Lincoln in the direction of the Cessna jet idling on the airfield. The pilot looks like he has a weapon as well.

“I’ve got to go.” The driver urges.

The cab door has protected them thus far and without it Michael prepares himself for a mad dash. The car following them has stopped a hundred feet away and the passengers look like they’re shooting indiscriminately over the doors and windows.

Michael hears gunfire behind him at the same time he hears Lincoln shout his name. Looking over his shoulder he can see his brother with the pilot’s gun, giving Michael just enough cover for the cab to pull away.

So Michael runs hard. He sees the pilot already in his seat, starting the engines, and Lincoln’s standing in the open hatch, waving Michael in. He jumps and collides into Lincoln, grateful that he didn’t miss the moving plane entirely.

A second crew member closes the hatch behind them and in a minute they’re off, the case secure with the pilot.

Lincoln’s chuckling by the time Michael gathers enough strength to sit up. The other crew member, a woman, has disappeared into the cabin.

“Close one,” Lincoln breathes into Michael’s neck. He can feel some more chuckles echo into his back, then his brother settles. Lincoln’s arms tighten around his shoulders.

Michael’s still panting but he doesn’t think it’s because he’s out of breath. His hand’s shaking slightly when he pats Lincoln’s arm in front of him.

He whispers. “Yeah, I know.”

_

Michael knows almost everything about Lincoln.

He knows that Lincoln’s teeth are sensitive to the cold.

He knows that the scar on his right knee wasn’t from falling off his bike, like Lincoln told their foster mother, but from a firecracker’s trajectory right through his pants leg. It could have been worse.

He knows that Lincoln is lactose intolerant but eats cheese whenever he can – because he can.

He knows that he cheated on Lisa with Veronica, but he never cheated on Veronica. She always knew.

He knows that Lincoln cried for five hours when Lisa told him she was pregnant because he was afraid that she would get rid of the baby.

Michael even knows that Lincoln’s cock curves slightly to the right and that he makes different sounds coming by himself than he does with someone else. Lincoln’s always listening when he’s jerking off, so he’s quiet, almost silent. When he’s with a girlfriend he’s loud, obnoxious, because that’s what women expect of him.

But it took him forever to figure out why Lincoln became a criminal. Veronica’s confession of Lincoln’s one locked tight secret really shouldn’t have been a surprise. Michael can see throughout his life where Lincoln made decisions no child should have had to make on their own. Sacrifices.

He’d always assumed that Lincoln had a choice.Yet Michael never knew. He never really wanted to know.  
_

They’re taken to debriefing in a mansion that looks like it came from Good Housekeeping.

Lincoln has dried but is still grimy from running through the forest. Michael doesn’t look any better and his eyes are still slightly glazed, shock or something near to it.

Yes, they’ve been running from danger just like this for almost a full year now but they’ve always been able to hide. They’ve adapted so easily and Michael’s been so fearless that Lincoln forgets that Michael doesn’t expect violence. He certainly shouldn’t be used to it.

They see L and W again. They’re in the white living room looking grim and completely out of place.

“Nice to see you guys again,” L seems to mean it. “We’ve got food in the kitchen.”

They’re debriefed at a wooden kitchen table, L and W at one end, Michael and Lincoln at the other eating bowls of chicken noodle soup.

There’s a camera in the corner listening to all of their answers like it’s taking deposition. Lincoln wonders if the General is on the other end. He eats a little messier just for the hell of it.

W puts down his pen, the pad he was writing on is blank but for the smiley face Lincoln can see upside down. This entire thing is for show.

“How about 24 hours to recoup? The house is yours.”

Lincoln nods, eager for everyone to just leave them alone for a little while.

“A car will pick up tomorrow and take you to your next destination,” L says, turning off the camera. “You did a good job guys. I just wanted to say it while I could.”

They let themselves out and Lincoln wanders around taking in the perfect taupe walls, the Colonial layout with a large kitchen and living room with a flatscreen above the fireplace. There are two bedrooms upstairs, perfectly unused and no personal touches anywhere in the house.

Desolate and empty and beautiful in the suburbs. It gives Lincoln the shivers.

He’s going back into the kitchen when he catches Michael going up the stairs. He follows and steps on a slightly damp shirt half of the way up. Michael’s boots and socks are at the landing, his pants in the doorway of the first bedroom.

Lincoln stops there. The kiss hours ago aside, Michael’s fragile right now. He didn’t say much of anything during the debriefing and the trainers didn’t press him. If he feels even a tiny bit as exhausted as Lincoln does, then he might just want to be alone.

Lincoln’s feet are moving anyway even as he’s wondering why. He’ll just check.

Michael’s turning on the shower when Lincoln sees him. He’s naked and there are tiny pinpricks of blood on the back of his thighs from where the shattered windshield cut him. There’s a bruise on his knee, darkening more by the hour and Lincoln’s chest hurts as he goes down on his own knees.

“You okay?” Lincoln says, running the tips of his fingers over the bruise and down Michael’s strong calf. He watches Michael’s cock grow thick and hard at eye level. Licks his lips and listens to Michael’s sharp inhale.

Michael stutters, “ I-I don’t know. Should I be?”

“If you’re not...” Lincoln trails off, wrapping his hand around the base of Michael’s cock and stroking him to full hardness. His brother braces himself against the bathtub, locking his knees before he goes down and shutting his eyes.

“No,” Lincoln says, stopping mid-stroke. “Look at me.” He doesn’t continue until Michael’s gazing at him again, his eyes half-lidded with arousal.

He dips to brush his lips against the bruised rough skin on Michael’s knee and gets a garbled moan in return. A lick to the enflamed flesh rewards him a fully gasped, “Lincoln,” and Michael’s hands on his shoulders, pulling him up to his feet.

Michael undresses him. Tugs his t-shirt over his head and pushes his jeans down his hips without unbuttoning them. Lincoln removes the last barrier of his boxers and steps into the shower spray with Michael

His brother’s wet body reminds him of the showers they took at the compound. How many times he wished he could slide down and suck Michael’s cock until he screamed or turn him around and play his tongue over the rim of his brother’s pucker.

He’s never done these things before yet Michael has always enticed his imaginings.

Water’s running down his brother’s face. His tanned skin flushed from the water warming their chilled bodies.

Lincoln pulls him into a kiss with a hand on the back of Michael’s slick neck and groans as Michael sweeps his tongue through his mouth. Their bodies meld flush through long passionate kisses that cause Lincoln’s breath to hitch in his aching chest.

He slides his hands over Michael’s skin, over his broad shoulders and down the knobs of his spine. Michael bumps his hips into his own when Lincoln’s fingers clench on his ass.

They’re pruny by the time they leave the shower. Hard and ready and nearly slipping on the bathroom tiles before they drip all over the carpet and land in a tangle on the bed.

The comforter soaks up their water and warmth.

Lincoln traces rivlets of water down the dip of Michael’s chest and stomach. He sucks a tiny pool from his brother’s belly button and chuckles when Michael bats at his head.

He doesn’t second guess sucking Michael’s cock. Just holds him steady and licks the clean skin from base to tip, wrapping his lips around the reddened head.

“Oh fuck.” Michael nearly comes off the bed, his hips jerking of their own accord, shoving his cock further into Lincoln’s mouth.

He fights a reflexive gag, breathes through his nose and sucks just like he likes it. Gentle then almost painfully hard, soothed with swipes of tongue that curl Michael’s toes.

Lincoln’s inexperince means nothing at the sight of Michael desperately trying to hold himself still and not come. His brother’s thighs tremble under his hands, Michael’s stomach clenches and unclenches in rhythm with his fists entangled in the bedding.

Lincoln wants to see Michael fall apart. He wants to hear every shout and moan that he’s been denied. He wants to feel Michael in and out. To taste him for hours on his tongue.

He wants. He just wants.

Michael cries out in wide eyed disappointment when he comes and Lincoln swallows fast, pets his brother’s twitching hips as he settles. He licks at Michael’s cock until it goes flaccid and he’s pushed away.

He savors the bitter salt and spreads it in his mouth to share with Michael as he’s pulled up his body into more languid, dizzying kisses.

Lincoln doesn’t even notice that Michael’s flipped them over until his brother’s jacking his cock.

He hisses, “Yes,” and Michael kisses him silent, rising up on his bruised knees while he thumbs the head of Lincoln’s cock. Michael rolls his balls with his other hand, his slim fingers going farther, reaching between his legs.

A finger taps Lincoln’s rim, the tip barely breaching him, and fire flashes through his body, spreads like liquid from his cock outwards. He grunts at the headboard and looks down to see Michael’s semen splattered hands smoothing the last spurts out of him and all over his brother’s stomach, lap, and cock.

Lincoln moans at the sight. Then moans again when Michael’s finger continues to rub at him.

“Too much,” he mumbles.

“Alright,” Michael replies, “But I’m going to lick that in the morning.” He smiles at the resulting shiver.

He pulls away and stretches his long body next to Lincoln and instinct has Michael tucked into his side, eyes sated and sleepy.  
_

Michael rides his cock in the morning.

Lincoln loves the bed. Loves being able to have eight hours of uninterrupted sleep as well, but he especially loves watching Michael straddle his lap. His blushing cock bobbing against his stomach. His body a dusky red from his hips up.

The fucking is mind blowing as well.

Michael’s so tight and slick. He had to have prepared. Lincoln gets a flash of Michael in the bathroom while he’s still asleep, his brother slicking his fingers with the baby oil in the medicine cabinet.

He groans.

“You like that?” Michael grinds down on him. He’s more perky than he was last night, Lincoln’s noticed. More talkative.

Lincoln sits up and flips him over, kissing the grin from his brother’s swollen mouth. He thrusts hard. Wants to make Michael scream for it.

His brother wraps his arms and legs around him. Michael shudders and moans like he’s coming apart. Lincoln runs his hands all over him, digs his fingertips into the tiny scabs on the back of his thighs and uses the leverage to push himself deeper.

“Lincoln, Linc,” Michael pants his name over and over. He’s so close just from listening to the slap of their bodies together and Michael’s moans breaking loose from his throat.

It’s hard to believe they’ve never done this before, Lincoln thinks. So much wasted time.

“We’ll make it up,” Michael responds and Lincoln realizes he was speaking out loud. “We’ll make up just like this.”

Michael clenches tight around him and Lincoln sees sparks.  
_

**The U.S.**

Michael goes missing twenty minutes after landing in Miami.

It’s not a ‘he’s here then he’s gone’ moment, but it’s pretty close. Lincoln wouldn’t have noticed at all if it hadn’t been for the sound of a van squealing away from the corner and Michael’s shopping bag on the ground.

They’ve been on five missions since Belize. Two months solid of sleeping in strange houses and aboard cargo planes.

They’ve been to five continents and learned to travel with an alacrity that’s stunned their handlers. They are given orders and they follow them for the most part, improvising when things go inevitably wrong but focusing on each other first, the mission second.

A postcard came for them in a safehouse in Ireland. It was handwritten and contained only two words.

Michael was certain it came from The General and that night they watched “Good Work” curl into ash in the wood burning fireplace.

Despite being on US soil, it takes Lincoln ten hours to find him.

Three minutes to shoot the men who held him and a minute that feels like an eternity untying the ropes that had cut into Michael’s wrists and shoulders.

Their mission to find and retrieve the coordinates of a freight leaving the Port of Miami in the evening is scrapped. As is Lincoln’s patience at The Company’s medical response.

“I’m fine.”

“Shut up.”

Michael licks his busted lip. Tries not to hiss when Lincoln shifts his dislocated shoulder checking outside yet again.

“My legs aren’t broken, you know,” Michael informs him.

Lincoln’s glare is glacial. “I said shut up.”

Michael yawns. The humidity is wretched. “My ass is numb.”

Lincoln comes upon him like a freight train, startling him when he stops inches away from Michael’s bloody face.

“What would you do if I died?”

Michael gapes for a second. “What?”

“If I was shot or stabbed or, I don’t know, cut into little peices by a drug cartel afraid that we’re here to steal their shipment-,”

“This is useless thinking,” Michael interrupts, his skinned hands up defensively. “I’m safe now.”

“But for how long?” Lincoln growls.

Michael doesn’t know what to say to that. He would love to run, has contemplated it more times in the last few months than he’s thought of the chances of coming out of his contract with The Company alive.

But the consequences – the reasons why he said yes, still apply.

“They want us dead.” Lincoln says, resolute. “And if we keep going they’re going to get their wish.”

“So what do we do?” Michael asks and Lincoln’s eyes go dark.

It takes him long minutes to answer and Michael’s nearly convinced there won’t be a reply at all when he hears the faint whomp of a helicopter overhead.

Lincoln wraps his arm around his shoulder and helps him out of the chair they’d tied him to. Kisses the unharmed patch of skin on his neck.

He says, “We wait.”  
_

The day Lincoln graduated from high school he was arrested for breaking and entering the house of an ex-girlfriend.

Her parents called the cops, aware that their daughter had a penchant for bad boys and that he knocked up Lisa Terano, who used to be such a nice girl.

Lincoln imagines that they thanked their lucky stars as they dialed 911.

Little did they know that their wonderful daughter, Emily, was by his side asking him to pick the lock so that she could sneak in and grab her dress for the ceremony. Despite all gossip to the contrary, he wasn’t sleeping with her. She was a very good friend, one of the few that stuck by his side other than Veronica.

He was just doing her a favor and held nothing against her when her parents practically gagged her as the cops slapped on the handcuffs. He went quietly.

Looking back, Lincoln wonders if that’s where it all started.

He went quietly.

Now, he researches. He listens. He absorbs. He learns and tries to change. But not too much.


	4. Part 4

_“You'll walk unscathed through musket fire,  
No ploughman's blade will cut thee down,  
No cutless wound will mark thy face  
And you will be my ain’ true love.”_

 

Lincoln hates Florida. He hates Connecticut too yet not for the reasons Michael would believe.

Gunshots aren’t fun.

Michael’s so quiet by his side. Still stunned maybe, but that’s all right. They have plenty of time for silence and explanations.

They have time for screaming and shouting as well. Lincoln’s not looking forward to that part.

Gretchen’s first aid is horrible. Lincoln wants to say as much but he can’t talk until they board the plane. Then he can’t move. He has to be dead. If only so The Company will believe it.

He can look at Michael sitting beside him in the stolen ambulance though. See his body rock with the road bumps with a lax sway counterpoint to his brother’s shaking hands and blank stare.

“I think you have a lot of explaining to do.” Gretchen says, too close.

Lincoln shoots her a look that he hopes says all of the hateful things he can’t verbalize. He wishes they didn’t need to her to leave the country but Mahone had been certain that she was the only one with the access. She’s staying with the plane.

When Lincoln’s done with his visual tirade, he turns to look back at Michael and startles to find he’s the one being stared at. He can’t hide his flinch.

Michael eyes are red rimmed, watery, and angrier than Lincoln’s ever seen them.

Lincoln wants to say he’s sorry. He wants to puts his arms around Michael and assure him that other than a painful flesh wound, he’s fine. Gretchen is a horribly good shot.

He wants to say that Michael’s not the only one who can plan, but he thinks his brother gets the point.  
_

Lincoln started to plan after Belize. He’d had the idea for a while, since before they were ambushed by The Company, in fact, but circumstances then certainly didn’t allow the type of freedom, conditional as it was, they were afforded working for the enemy.

There might also have been a wee bit of righteous anger that propelled the idea into fruition, especially after Michael’s abduction because, after all, Lincoln is just the muscle. Right?

Right.

It’s too easy to set up in the end. The Company did what Lincoln expected them to do and completed most of the work.

They were only two months into their contract before Michael and Lincoln were both reported dead to Sara and LJ. Less than a week later, all record of their transfer out of the country and subsequent travels went dark. No government in the world would be able to track them or identify them.

He knows this because Mahone knows this.

He kept the cell phone he retrieved in Belize and Mahone texted him the day he woke up next to Michael as if it was what the G-man had expected all along.

Lincoln didn’t express his gratitude.

One-liners were transmitted back and forth when they both had time. Status updates on LJ and Sara (because of course Mahone knew), and “yes” or “no” responses that developed into who could be where, when.

Lincoln kept Michael in the dark only because he needed the authenticity. It was cruel, coldblooded even, but when Lincoln went down he needed their enemies to see the anguish.

The Company had to think it was true.

_

Michael had only been to the beach once, with Lincoln and a six-years-old LJ.

The sun had made the sand nearly impossible to walk on and roasted them from midday to sundown. LJ sucked on ice pops from Lincoln’s cooler while they drank sweaty beers that were warm by the last drops.

“You’re pretty good at that,” Lincoln said watching Michael build a sandcastle with his son.

Michael grinned and wiped the sweat from his brow. “I better be.”

“Build!” LJ demanded, poking Michael with the business end of his plastic shovel.

Michael gave Lincoln an incredulous look.

“Hey, I didn’t do anything.” Lincoln held up his hands in surrender.

“Only give life to a slave driver,” Michael said, getting back to work.

Lincoln chuckled and gave LJ a thumbs-up that the boy returned in miniature.

LJ built until he grew bored and wandered up to the surf a few feet away. Michael kept going though, packing the sand and shoring it up into towers and moats. Lumps that represented damsels in distress.

Lincoln watched them both and applied sunscreen to red noses. He brought out the sandwiches he’d made and waited for the smell to draw them in for a meal.

They ate and swam and ate. Lay around for hours reading, playing, and doing nothing at all.

“Best day ever,” LJ said on the ride home.

He had his head in Lincoln’s lap, his dad’s thick fingers carding through his hair. His bare sandy feet lay draped over Michael in the driver’s seat of Lincoln’s ’73 Mach 1.

Michael had been grinning since his big brother tossed him the keys and he agreed.

“Best day ever.”  
_

Australia isn’t bad.

Sara likes it enough and for Michael that’s the only thing he cares about.

Lincoln likes anywhere that isn’t some place to run from. Michael can’t say that he blames him.

It had been rough when they landed in Melbourne.

Michael isn’t proud of the way he treated Lincoln after the plan was revealed.

“It’s so simple it could never work,” Michael argued unexpectedly that first night.

Sara had been laughing at something Mahone said and she stopped abruptly at the anger in Michael’s voice. He’d efficiently slapped a wet blanket on their welcome home party.

But Michael hadn’t a care at the time. He got in Lincoln’s face, saying, “It won’t work. We should run.”

And Lincoln hadn’t said anything at all. LJ’s hurt look said enough.

Michael left. Practically stomped his way down to the beach and plopped in the sand. He was being childish. He knew. He just needed time to adjust, again.

Sara was right on his heels.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Michael shook his head. “Not a thing. I just don’t trust this. This shouldn’t have worked.”

Sara sat beside him and leaned into his arm. Her voice was gentle, understanding. “Why? Because it wasn’t your plan?”

The incision on his thigh stung like hell and Michael thought of the hasty surgery he’d received from some nameless woman on the plane. He’d watched the same thing done to Lincoln and held the tiny deactivated capsules in his hand. Crunched them under his foot one-by-one once they landed on the free soil.

“No, that’s not it at all. I just,” Michael stops, body going stiff at the memory of Lincoln going down. The puddle of blood on the ground. The way his brother’s tacky skin felt in his arms. “I wish he’d told me.”

Muscular arms wrapped around his shoulders from behind. “I’m sorry.”

Lincoln.

“You should have told me,” Michael admonished, not angry anymore. Not when he thought about who was by his side and how they got there.

“I know.” Lincoln agreed quickly. “You understand why I didn’t?”

Michael nodded. “Of course.” But what if something had gone wrong?

He shivered and Sara and Lincoln held him closer.

“What do we do now?” Sara asked, kissing Michael in the same patch his brother had kissed in Miami.

The weather was a little cloudy but rays of sunlight were peeking through the clouds. The gulls were loud overhead, picking their lunch from the churning surf and trashcans.

People wandered all around them but there were no double takes. No strange looks. They were normal. They were no one.

Michael smiled and Lincoln answered for them both. The sea swelled in front of them, a sheet of blue billowing into sky.

“Anything we want.”

**~ Epilogue**

Sara’s body is soft and sweet smelling. Her belly is growing round with child and her face is glowing more everyday.

Lincoln has his arm around him. He snores softly into Michael’s shoulder; face half-on, half-off the pillow.

Michael lies awake thinking. His body still aches from the night's activities. His ass is sore from Lincoln’s kisses, from the occasional slap and long, drawn out fuck that left Michael screaming into the pillows.

He can still taste Sara on his lips and feel her clenching on his cock.

He wraps an arm around her, the soft underside of her breasts rest against like the finest cloth and he suppresses a moan.

It’s late and Michael’s sated, his body exhausted.

Still…

It’s so easy to kiss them both awake.

Michael slides into Sara like he never left. He hisses as Lincoln eases back into his stretched body. They feel so good like this.

Michael feels like he’s died and been reborn for this. He welcomes the new life with arms already filled.

They cling to each other and fall apart, separate but united.

Pieces that make up a whole.

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 1 lyrics from Bad Company’s “Bad Company”
> 
> Part 2 quote from Erich Maria Remarque’s _All Quiet On The Western Front_
> 
> Part 3 quote from Walt Whitman’s “Sparkles from the Wheel”
> 
> Part 4 lyrics from Alison Krauss’ “You Will Be My Ain True Love”
> 
> Story title from Walt Whitman’s “The Wound-Dresser”


End file.
